The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-09-23
ON THE WING.
A Mankato Tourist Describes a Ride
Through Kansas.
ATcHIsoN, TOPEKA & SANTA FE r. R.,
Santamhar % 1897

,
Daily Free Pres;
It's getting lonesome out here on the
plains of bleeding Kansas" Our Pull
man started out from Kansas City last
night well filed. Before noon all had
left but two women and two small chill
dren, and soon these too will leave ME.
Then ..alone in my glory" sleeper, 1
mean, shall pass through this land of
train robbers as far as Pueblo. l did
wonder that the collector" took up my
check over three hundred miles before
l reached there. No danger that he'll
forget had one. The Topeka & Santa
Fe is 10 be commended for some things.
1t taxes good care of a fellow, if it does
take him into hard country. If you
want to take an afternoon nap out comes
a pillow for your comfort, and if you
don't get enough to eat in 20 minutes
the way meals are served isn't at fault.
But here beyond Spearville civilization
seems to have about run out, though ]
can see at my right school house with
a dozen children in its yard, and at my
left a couple of hay stacks. But we
don't know what there'll be next year.
For back at Kingsley where we took din
ner was railroad depot of brick and
stone, which I'll venture to say cost
more than all ours at Mankato, and the
first thing 1 heard on stopping was that
Kingsley had just let $4,000 contract
for water works. l have seen no larger
corn, nor finer country than from Man.
kato to Blue Earth City. Northern Iowa
looks comparatively like new country.
To be sure you are likely to fall in love
with the hill country and hedges and
forest and fruit trees as you near st. Joe.
From there to Kansas City the vast corn
fields amaze Minnesotian as our wheat
fields do New Yorker.
Well, I'll take it all back. Civilization
hasn't run out" yet, for here is Dodge
City with long crowded platform, yards
full of cars and coal, and great number
of handsome business houses of stone,
brick and iron and more going up, with
hedges, telephone, electric lights, brick
yards, and fair ground.
Between Kansas City and Hutchinson
it is fine country, but in some places
farmer GROWERS growl great deal about
short corn crop, but then-farmers are
chronic GROWERS.
But Kansas City! Kansas City! who
can describe it? Kansas City against the
world, say 1. Prospects Nights too
high to get to. For shame! Why, at
Kansas City it would be a mole hill.
There, if they can't level down a tunnel
through hill they'll climb over it with
their cable lines. Five years ago they
had none, by December they'll have %
miles and a year later 40, more than any
other city in the world, except she who
looks out at the setting sun through the
Golden Gate" And her commerce.!
The amount of merchandise and of
western productions handled through
Kansas City is simply marvellous.
heard two G. A. R. men talking
about the early days, and of what made
her the great emporium instead of Atch-
ison and other towns. 1t is the simple
story that Shakespeare told well, but
Mankato people can never catch on to
'There is tide in the affairs of men
which taken at the food leads on to for
tune"
Cimarron and the sand flying like a
small desert. 1t is big desert however
but still brick yards. "Who dug that
big ditch yonder along'the ridge?" ask
a man at the station. The "Hop Bitters
man." 1t Is mirage anyhow. They
say it is hundred miles long, for irri-
eating this arid country. Don't go TO
moralizing now about what big monu-
ment you dyspeptic fellows have Deen
quietly building up through the drug
stores all these wears. At Kansas City
they say that with tillage and breaking
and cultivating and the rainfalls the land
becomes fertile. It don't make that
corn there on the left on the Arkansas
river bottom grow over four feet high
though.
Think Pm more miserable trying to
write in this dust, than / can hope to
make your readers by writing more,
and so I'll quit by saying there are lots
of cattle and stacks of hay "till you can't
rest" along the river at the left, and lit
tie hills still you can't rest" at the right
and behind-though the connection isn't
very close-Kansas City. appointed a
lively agent to represent the Standard
Fibre-Ware Co. in that great mart of
com merce. M. G. WILLARD.